Parochial school shooting ends in teen-ager's arrest

Published: Thursday, March 08, 2001

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. {AP} A 14-year-old girl shot a female classmate in the shoulder Wednesday in a parochial school cafeteria following a long-standing argument between the two eighth-graders, authorities said.

A witness said the shooter fired at the floor and the bullet ricocheted into the victim.

"This is a situation of a student who was upset with another student," police Officer David Ritter said. "This is not a random act of violence and as far as I understand there are no other targets for this violence."

The shooting happened around noon during lunch at Bishop Neumann Junior-Senior High, a Roman Catholic school.

Freshman Andrew Miller, 16, said he was in the cafeteria with about 120 students when a girl came into the cafeteria screaming and fired two shots.

"I saw her holding a gun, but I didn't really know it was a gun," he said. "She told everyone to get down. She fired towards the ceiling, then fired into the ground, which ricocheted and hit the girl in the shoulder."

The shooting suspect was in police custody within four minutes, Ritter said.

There were conflicting accounts of who subdued the alleged shooter. A diocesan official said it was an administrator; a police officer said it was a student.

The girl in custody was being questioned and police said they did not yet know where she got the gun.

Authorities would not say if they planned to charge the girl as an adult, but said they would need to petition a court before they could do so.

After the shooting, all students at the school were taken to the auditorium and patted down by police in a search for weapons, Lycoming County District Attorney Thomas Marino said. Students were later taken to a nearby school for questioning, he said.

The violence came two days after two people were killed and 13 wounded in a high school shooting in Santee, Calif. A ninth-grader was arrested. Santana students returned to the campus Wednesday, with counselors available in each classroom.

Bishop Neumann has about 230 students in grades 7 through 12. Williamsport, home of the Little League World Series, is in central Pennsylvania, about 160 miles northwest of Philadelphia.